‘Southside with You’ — Swipe Left

Nearly everyone can remember being bored by their parents telling them the story of their first date. Sure, it’s kind of sweet to let them dwell on a happy memory, but you wouldn’t want the story to go on for 90 minutes — and you certainly wouldn’t think that it merited being made into a movie.

Most first dates are too casual to be of interest to anyone but the people involved. But Hollywood is so in the tank for Barack and Michelle Obama that the story of their first date has been turned into a movie called “Southside with You” — and it hits theaters this weekend.

So what exactly happens in the movie? Well, nothing much.

Considering the hype that accompanied the film when the project was announced in December 2014, the end result is surprisingly low-key. Despite rumors that persisted for years that Will Smith would play Obama in a biopic, it stars a relatively unknown actors Parker Sawyers as Barack (he does bear a striking resemblance to the president) and Tika Sumpter as Michelle.

So what exactly happens in the movie? Well, nothing much.

Barack is a summer intern at the Chicago law firm where Michelle works as a lawyer, and she’s afraid to date him — despite his repeat invites — because she’s afraid of the appearance of impropriety.

So, applying the sneakiness that would someday lead to his nonstop use of executive orders to pass laws without congressional approval, Barack invites her to see him appear at a community activism workshop — but lures her out four hours early so he can show her around Chicago’s South Side.

[lz_ndn video=31307221]

Michelle winds up attending an Afrocentric art exhibit with him in which first-time writer-director Richard Tanne subjects viewers to the Obamas staring at and discussing paintings for 10 minutes of screen time that feels like 10 days.  Paying customers may be as annoyed with this movie as much as Michelle was first annoyed at Barack.

Next, we’re treated to the two of them on what seems like the slowest walk through a park in history, while we hear Barack discuss his complicated childhood (Kenya is mentioned along the way, a surprise only surpassed by how much cigarette smoking he does in the movie). As they finally drive in his rusted-out car to the community meeting where Michelle would be thrilled by his organizing prowess, they hear a radio ad for Spike Lee’s controversial “Do the Right Thing” (the date took place in 1989, the year the seminal film was released) and decide to see it after Barack notes that a coworker considered the film to be “reverse-racist.”

Finally, he takes Michelle out for ice cream and they share a little kiss before each heads home and dreamily drifts into thought before the film’s endless closing credits (which, despite the overall movie being just 84 minutes long, are padded with countless shots of the Afrocentric paintings featured in the earlier exhibit).

Yet despite the movie being the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry, the critic for The New Yorker had the audacity to say, “This tender, intimate drama has the grand resonance of a historical epic.”

Related: Michelle Obama Lectures Men: ‘Be Better’

Really? If that comment doesn’t show the blind, inherent bias of the national media when it comes to the Obamas, nothing will.

Despite costing just $1.5 million to make, “Southside” has at least a dozen producers — including John Legend, who never turns down any opportunity to hang out with the president.

That whopping total of financiers implies that the people who contributed funds were willing to give — but not that willing. After all, they had to know that the chance of this nonexistent storyline yielding blockbuster returns is beyond minimal.

Watching the Obamas stare at paintings, watch a movie, ramble about their personal lives and then eat ice cream is hardly compelling cinema. The one question that must be asked by anyone who sees it is: Would this movie have been made about anyone else having the exact same date?

Actually, add a second question all viewers will likely consider: Can we get a refund so we can spend our hard-earned $10 to $15 per ticket on an entertaining date of our own?